Catarina Ykens (II)

[2] She was born in Antwerp as the daughter of the painter Johannes Ykens and his second wife Barbara Brekevelt and was baptized on 24 February 1659.

Garland paintings are a special type of still life developed in Antwerp by Jan Brueghel the Elder in collaboration with the Italian cardinal Federico Borromeo at the beginning of the 17th century.

[10] By the second half of the 17th century secular themes such as portraits and mythological subjects also decorated the central part of the many paintings made in this fashion.

This meaning is conveyed in these still lifes through the use of stock symbols, which reference the transience of things and, in particular, the futility of earthly wealth: a skull, soap bubbles, candles, empty glasses, wilting flowers, insects, smoke, watches, mirrors, books, hourglasses and musical instruments, various expensive or exclusive objects such as jewellery and rare shells.

[12][13] The worldview behind vanitas paintings was a Christian understanding of the world as a temporary place of fleeting pleasures and sorrows from which mankind could only escape through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ.

filia Devota f. 1688, at Sotheby's London of 6 July 2017, lot 115) contains the typical symbols present in vanitas paintings such as a skull and wilting flowers, but has a distinctive macabre aspect by putting the skull crowned with a wig on a bust and having a bird pick at some berries on a branch pinned to the front of the bust.